One thing Ive noticed a lot of on these forums is that amongst the various build requests and build suggestions being tossed around, there is often at least one choice in a build that seems a bit 'dodgy'. The warlock trees are littered with effectively useless space-filler talents left over from when we were a truly useless class, and this is intended to help steer new warlocks away from taking these choices and reducing their effectiveness. Often advice on these poor choices is found at the end of a thread, and I feel will probably not get read by the majority. So here we are, a quick guide to the warlock talents you should really NOT choose:
Affliction
The afflic tree is pretty solid all-round, but there are still some real stinkers in here;
Improved Curse of Weakness
This is the biggest waste of talent points in this tree. The increase in effectiveness is poor, costs you three talents, and to be honest its very unlikely youll be casting this a lot unless your playstyle focuses tightly around damage limitation. Avoid like the plague.
Improved Drain Soul
This talent is currently (1.
broken and shows no signs of being fixed; the mana regen buff only procs if DL deals the KILLING blow, which for such a low dps spell is highly unlikely. Also, even if they fix this, consider that the regen boost is linked to your current passive regen, a rate linked to the Spirit attribute. As a warlock, spirit is of almost no use whatsoever, you should be wearing +sta and +int. Spirit is for druids, leave it there.
Improved Curse of Agony
This one is a real joke. Three talent points for a measly 6% dps boost on a powerful but not overwhelming curse. The damage increase is unnoticeably small, so dont bother.
Demonology
This tree is packed with rubbish, the real legacy from pre-1.6 when warlocks were a complete laughing stock and NOBODY specced into Demonology. The worst talent available to warlocks has been removed (Master Conjuror - whisky tango foxtrot???) from the game but plenty of crap remains.
Improved Health Funnel
This is an utter waste, due to the nature of Health Funnel. Not only do you heal your pet for 20% more, you also take 20% more damage from the spell, so a bit of a two-edged sword. I personally never cast this spell as it is quicker and more resource-efficient to insta-summon a new pet than destructively heal your existing one. A poor improvement to an already poor ability.
Fel Intellect
A bit controversial as a lot of Afflic/Demon locks pick this to have a bigger mana battery, but to be honest it is just a good way to burn five talent points. A small increase to pet mana isnt what a Dark Pact lock needs as he can rely on the pet's innate mana regen outpacing his DP spell, and all other locks have absolutely no use for a tiny bit more pet mana. It usually takes my imp about thirty seconds to burn his mana at most; this talent gives him an extra four before he's doing nothing. Avoid.
Improved Enslave Demon
This is a bit strange, as it is a great help with maintaining control over the endgame summons when they break free. However, you have to sink at least three talent points into it to get a real benefit from it, and the number of times youre really going to be enslaving demons is tiny when compared to the rest of your spells. Spend your talent points elsewhere unless you REALLY enjoy using your endgame summons and enslaving random demons.
Improved Firestone
Utter, utter crap. Firestones are a joke item as it is, taking away your ability to use a staff (essential to a lock for +sta) and granting a good but not great bonus to fire damage. Unless youre a full Destro lock with Conflagrate, fire isnt a big component of your damage output, but if you're that far into Destro you dont have enough talents left to get this one. The dps boost is small even if you are some bizarre firelock, and there are plenty of powerful offhand items you could and should be using instead even if you hate staves. Complete rubbish, if youve bought this PLEASE respec.
Improved Spellstone
Yet another talent that gets you wondering where Blizzard buy their special tobacco leaves; spellstones are just as useless as firestones as your staff bonuses are gone. Its nice to be able to absorb a nice chunk of spell damage, but against most spellcaster classes we are pretty dangerous as it is. Oh, and it strips away your Demon Armour buff (thanks Blizzard) AND triggers your Healthstone cooldown, so the damage the stone saves you is taken away as you cannot cast your healthstone when you need it. The only use for a spellstone at all is de-cursing yourself if an enemy lock or two are laying DoTs on you, and this talent doesnt really help with that. Again, total crap.
Destruction
The popular destruction tree is again fairly well-rounded, but blessed with a few rubbish talents.
Aftermath
A lot of people seem in love with this talent, but I personally consider it a bit of a waste. Daze is the least disrupting status effect in the game, slowing your enemy a bit and thats about it. Spending five points on a low chance at a minor disruption seems like insanity to me with Bane sitting right next to it in the tree. Leave it alone, increase your dps with Bane.
Improved Firebolt
This talent sounds like a good idea, until you consider the real effect of it on the battlefield. It increases your Imp's dps by a small amount, but not his mana efficiency; he will do the same amount of damage to any significant mob, just a bit quicker. Unless you are an Imp PvPer who relies on the imp's constant firebolt lashings to bring down opponents as you run disruption, this is a mistake.
EDIT: Apparently this dps boost can be rather helpful against disruption-based opposition such as mages, other warlocks and (I imagine) Rogues who take your main dps out of the fight. I hadnt considered that, but it does limit your playstyle imo. [thanks Yatsufasa] =)
Improved Lash of Pain
This one I dont hate so much as it does increase your succy's dps by a noticeable amount and gives her something to spend her mana on. I just think there are better choices in the tree for your talent points, this is a very specific talent.
Ruin
Hehe... just kidding. Ruin rocks
Pyroclasm
Again a popular talent and in theory quite powerful, but in my personal experience it doesnt seem to proc all that often. With this one I suggest you give it a try and really try to see how often it helps you out, I suggest a combat log tracker and a bit of math. I wouldnt take this, but Ive been wrong before.
So there you have it, hope this helps you budding locks out. If you dont agree with something Ive written here please feel free to say so, but unless Ive made a glaring error Ill leave the post as it is. This is from my experience only, so its almost certain there is an Improved Spellstone fanatic out there who's based a build around it.
~sin
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To byloby przegiecie latac infernalaem jak z vw.
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